As one of the world’s most recognised athletic tainers using whole body EMS, Thomas Ott
gives recommendations for its proper use in strength taining for professional athletes

I’ve used EMS Taining in professional spots since 2009. Through my work at Müller- Wohlfaht Othopaedic Centre in Munich I dealt with professional athletes from diff erent spots evey day. Over the years, EMS taining has become an important pat of my taining both in the area of rehabilitation after injuy and strength & conditioning.

Often the little things are the deciding factor in winning at world championships or at the Olympics. This is why many athletes like Usain Bolt take the oppotunity to use EMS taining to bring them into top form. Individually dosed and adapted to the requirements of the respective spot, it can give a decisive level of advantage. From my long-term experience in strength & conditioning with professional athletes I can recommend EMS taining for increasing peformance and giving the athlete the exta boost that could make a difference in their results.

SPORT-SPECIFIC TRAININGAs a tainer, it’s your job to make athletes better at their spot by improving their condition and cognitive skills. For that purpose, strength taining is done with spots equipment and the accompanying exercises in order to make it even more beneficial for the athlete.

Similarly, EMS taining can be tansferred to spot-specific movements and simultaneously have a positive inluence on strength development. Using EMS during spot-specifi c movements can increase inta- and inter-muscular coordination, and therefore enhance performance At this level, this can give a definitive advantage for the athlete.

EMS can be easily integated into the weekly taining routine at any stage of preparation for competitions. Maximum and explosive strength can both be increased through higher muscle activity and improved movement speed. This is done by activating the fast-twitch fibres first, developing movement speed and explosiveness. In principle, it can work with the same progammes as those used for conventional strengthening.

It’s impotant to ensure that the settings and intensity can be adapted to the taining goals – if the goal is to move luidly and without disruption, then you should choose a longer pulse rise or even continuous current.

Recovey plays an impotant role in evey athlete’s life and reducing recovery times by increasing blood low after an intense taining, combined with other measures, can have a huge impact on peformance. Using recovey and metabolism progammes with EMS can shorten recovey times even more. But if an athlete is going to do EMS taining, his or her entire weekly taining programme must be taken into consideration.

The more taining units that the athlete undetakes, the more relevant the selected paameters of the EMS taining are and paticularly the chosen taining time in relation to the technical and competitive taining units in order to ensure sufficient regeneation time.

The implementation of EMS training off ers athletics coaches a great opportunity to improve the athlete’s condition whilst taking into account functional aspects. In this case, the focus should not be technical training. This is the technical tainer’s job and as far as possible should be carried out under real-life conditions for the paticular spot.

WHAT EFFECTS OF EMS TRAINING HAVE BEEN PROVEN IN STUDIES AND ARE RELEVANT FOR COMPETITIVE SPORTS?

In addition to the proven improvements in strength and muscle building, the results are paticularly interesting in terms of improvements in maximum strength and high-speed strength, the important components in maximum peformance:

• Whole body EMS increased the maximum performance (product of speed of movement and strength) of athletes of up to 30 per cent in sports studies.

• The long-term eff ects are particularly impressive: Increases in speed were recorded up to three weeks after the last training session.

• Compared to other high-speed strength methods, EMS training is the only training method that results in an increase in maximum performance – while typical high-speed strength and maximum strength methods only achieve increases during the strength units, combined with higher mechanical loads.

• The speed of the contractions in the muscles increased by an average of 22 per cent after 8 training units. The maximum performance of the abdominal muscles that are important for almost all kinds of sport can be increased by around 67 per cent.

• The explosive power of the hard-to-train core muscles was found to have been improved by up to 74 per cent.

• The CK values were used as a measurement for intensity and were approx.imately 40 per cent higher after whole body EMS training than inconventional training – often a crucial factor in building up muscle mass and according to many experts the sign of an eff ective training session.

The effects recorded up until now can be significantly increased by making appropriate changes to the training parameters. In these particular studies quite low intensities were chosen.